Isn't it a journey to get to your dream team? This is demonstrating that whilst you have a "goal" in mind you may not be able to apply it (and be successful) straight away and being adaptable to the players you have available and the patience to allow players to develop whilst working towards your goal is sometimes needed.

Have to echo the sentiment here, even when I finished the challenge I carried on the save and still ended up changing jobs after six months and winning the trophies I was after as the journey was still fun....and I finally at the 3rd attempt landed the Man Utd job which I finished the save with.

I started with 5 small leagues in terms of number of divisions and teams, China, South Africa, Mexico and Argentina & Brazil I think. Once you get several years in and save file grows and you've got the larger leagues running then reduce down to 3 running at once. It all depends on how your machine handles it.

Oh dear, that didn't go so well. Hopefully you'll finish off the coaching badge whilst un-employed which would be helpful....hopefully.
I've been distracted by Counter Strike so not played for a few days and now I've been enticed by Red Dead Redemption 2 so might be a while before I finish my first season in China.

I usually stick to what they want to hear. Particularly if they have any philosophies they like. The club I took over had just been relegated from the Super League and didn't have any so was a bit fortunate there.
And also say the budget's are fine and no changes needed...try to come across as not making wholesale changes and such.

Same here until the DoF signed Nikola Pejovic on loan in Jan transfer window.
Just a thought, what are you setting your manager's reputation to? It might be worth setting it as "Former International" so the players take more notice of you from the beginning with regard to press conferences and team talks.

I never had any media questions about it, But I used the 25 first team squad + Sasa Ilic (10 games) who left during the winter break and one U19 player for one game (Nikola Lakcevic).
With press conferences and team talks I keep an eye out to see if the players are showing complacency and try to cut that out with the responses. And also stress to take one game at a time & can't go into it thinking it's already won...but at the same time "we've trained well and confident of securing a result" if it's for a league game.
First Team Squad:
Honestly it's luck with this save, I nearly didn't make it to the CL group stage at all. Against Honved it required an 88th min goal to secure the away goals win. Was 3-1 down vs Celtic in the first leg away and got an 86th min goal and then held on in the 2nd leg as I went 2-0 up and then made it interesting with an own goal on the 66th. In the EL first knockout round in needed an 90+5th min winner in the 2nd leg to go through as we'd have been out on away goals.
The group stage annoyed me somewhat as we saw the other side of late goals, we lost to Ajax in the 90th min of the first meeting with them and City needed an 86th min winner the 3-2 defeat. The Dortmund games were strange as they just didn't seem to turn up, at that stage I thought I could have made it out of the group but alas a step too far.
European results if interested:

Just as an update - I finished the season in Serbia and it's not that bad at all compared to some other leagues. There was only one week where I had four games in a week (Wed > Sat > Mon > Wed) and that culminated with the Serbian Cup semi-final 2nd leg. I had thankfully won the league with first Wednesday game of that spell (3 league games remaining) so it could have been a nuisance if the title was still up in the air but I was able to win those as well anyway.
The biggest help with fixtures was probably getting eliminated from the Europa League in the 2nd Knockout round as I'd imagine it'd be a lot tougher if I'd stayed in the competition. If you're doing better than I did in the CL/EL then I expect it'd a very tough final league phase.
As I was mostly focused on morale and fitness as they appeared from my perspective to be your biggest issue in maintaining form through to the end of the season it's worked out quite well. I left the training to the assistant (probably not the best idea in this case) and DoF to most of the other DoF type tasks, only left myself with the veto power over player sales. Taking over these aspect could allow you to do better.
Tactically I did change from an attacking mentality to standard when I was leading in the 2nd half of games in the final phase of the league to reduce the intensity of our game to help reduce condition loss although I'm not sure how much that helped.
And on squad rotation - I did swap nearly the whole team (including keeper) in rotation where possible which we could do as they're supposed to be one of the top two teams in the league. Obviously due to injuries & suspension that couldn't be done every time. I kept an eye on the fixture list to ensure that my first choice line up would be available for the big games where possible. I forgot to use youngsters from the reserves/U19's aside from one occasion when I played a winger from the U19's. I should have used them when I had that 4 games in one week spell, alas my concentration attribute seems to be on the decline.

I was looking for a save to do and having seen this have started a Partizan save. Tactics wise I think the squad is suited to a 4-2-3-1 wide system and doesn't need anything fancy, particularly in the league where we're one of the better sides. So far we've played 25 games in all competitions with 21 wins and 4 losses. All 4 defeats have been in the Champions League with 4 away defeats and 1 home defeat to Man City. As you can see in the screenshots below I'm not using anything fancy although the 2nd one just moves everything a little deeper for those tough CL away trips...If I remember to select it although it did get us a win against DVB.
Tactics used so far: (no player instructions used)
I think the biggest issue you're experiencing is likely due to the physical and mental wellness of the players. Regular rotation of the players (not necessarily the whole team at once) including who gets substituted taking care of the physical side of things (don't forget you can use youngsters from reserves/U19 squads as well). For the mental side I rely on the pre/post-match press conferences to be confident in my teams ability (Training has gone well and confident of getting a result) but at the same time say the "opposition have a chance and it's not going to be easy". Keeping morale high and the players focused to avoid complacency is the key to getting consistency over the course of the season. For team talks I sometimes let my assistant do them but when I do them it's always done in calm tone. Unless they've been poor in the first half (or after the game) be aggressive and it usually gets them back on track.
Looking at my squad as we approach November you can see most of them have good morale and match sharpness. The only ones not match sharp or in good morale are the injured players or the couple that haven't played much: (only signing done by DoF is Djordje Kamber)
Results to show consistency: